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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28062627">apricate</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/venuscava/pseuds/venuscava'>venuscava</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NCT (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Flowers, Huang Ren Jun &amp; Lee Jeno Are Best Friends, Light Angst, M/M, Nature Magic, Non-Linear Narrative, Urban Fantasy, and it might be up to renjun to kind of figure it out, but he's human enough for renjun, jaemin isn't exactly human, lapslock, the world is stuck somewhere between an end and a beginning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:28:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,627</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28062627</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/venuscava/pseuds/venuscava</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>after all, to love with fault, to love <i>despite</i>, that’s as human as it gets.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Huang Ren Jun/Na Jaemin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>apricate</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is just a lot of world building bc i've been trying to get better at that. and just writing in general i guess. enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>it started, most say, after the earth got sick.</p><p>enormously sick, magnanimously sick. sick enough to cry poison, heave out scorching air, shed layers of skin without resistance. sick enough to realize it could not go on alone. historians have always summed it up in a way that makes renjun’s toes curl every time. <em>when the earth got sick, it did the worst, most humiliating thing it could possible do—it became human. </em></p><p>because truthfully, and renjun knows this empirically, being unable to go on alone is the most human phenomenon of them all.</p><p>fingers, meant to be entwined with others’. necks, meant to curve over shoulders. eyes, meant to find someone looking back. lungs, meant to breathe in sync.</p><p>it all makes extraordinary sense, is all he’s saying. he just wonders, rather bitterly, if the earth had to adopt the worst parts of being human, as well. because sometimes hands go around necks, and shoulders push into each other, and eyes cut deeper than a knife, and lungs drip, drip, drip with black. and the earth, well, the earth doesn’t forget any of that.</p><p>over the years, renjun’s read enough books to build a library in his head. not that he’d ever willingly leave his cottage in the first place, but being confined to one world proves to be easier when it encases a multitude of other worlds.</p><p>he’s spent too much time poring over mismatched green leaves bound together with fine bark, inked with darkened sap that is only just legible in the morning sun. parched for answers, a perpetual ache within him waiting to be quelled, he’s devoured anything he’s discovered about the eternal era—a name he’s come to dislike for its inaccuracy. for its hopelessness.</p><p><em>maybe,</em> he thinks every day, <em>maybe i will be the one to reverse it. maybe i can save us.</em></p><p>it’s a longshot, because saving the world from salvation itself is not the sort of things heroes do. though the honest truth is that renjun is not a hero, he’s just a sad person. and often, sad people give names to salvation that not sad people don’t quite understand.</p><p>at age eight, he seeks answers for vengeance. at age thirteen, he seeks answers for purpose. and at age nineteen, he seeks answers for a sad salvation—that is, until he meets the boy with the blue hair.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>❀</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>he’s a wide-eyed child who gazes longingly at every inch of the world when he first spots the black rose sprouting demurely from his mother’s shoulder. it peeks through her sweater, spilling out of an unseemly tear in the fabric, because renjun’s mother is nothing if not careful.</p><p>a thoughtless, innocent inquiry about the flower ends up leaving an ugly taste in his mouth, like dried pollen and burning leaves, when his mother spins around and clasps a hand over the tear, panic so raw in her eyes that it makes him stumble a few steps back.</p><p>at age seven, he should not be afraid. jeno from a few boulders over tells him as such, preaching the importance of being grown-up now, <em>we’re not six anymore, jun-ah, it’s time to stop acting like we are. </em></p><p>he tries, he tries so hard, but fear slips over him like an unwanted skin, a response mirroring the terror in his mother’s eyes.</p><p>so the soft dirt under his feet feels like glass when he falls onto it, furniture wrapped in vines beginning to shake around him, suddenly a stranger to the invincibility he once assigned it. so his eyes well up with hot tears and he can do nothing. so he feels his hands sink into the dirt against his will until they’re trapped in the firm grip of the earth and all he can do is cry some more, desperate, helpless to do anything but watch as something begins to take shape at the base of his mother’s feet and rise, slowly.</p><p>his mother says, <em>renjun, renjun look at mama. look at mama, oh my god, i’m so sorry. are you listening to me, baby? look here.</em></p><p>his wrist hurts. it <em>hurts </em>and he can’t wrench it out of the ground, but he doesn’t think it matters anyway, not compared to the hurt elsewhere, right inside his ribcage where his heart splinters bit by bit as he watches roots form to plant his mother’s feet to the ground, keeping her from escaping.</p><p>his mother says, <em>this is my fault. this is my fault and you should never blame yourself. do you understand?</em></p><p>but renjun barely does, because she’s choking on her words, heaving heavy sobs that remind renjun of thunderstorms, and the tears only seem to help the bark around her grow faster. the pain is sharp at his wrist and he screams so loud and dry and frantic that his heart starts pumping inhumanly hard, trying to keep up because there are <em>too many things</em> happening and he can’t control a single one.</p><p>his mother says, <em>you are everything. everything. i love you more than you will ever believe. </em></p><p>before he can stop the blood from pumping loud in his ears, before he can think about how final her words feel, how set in stone, the column of brown overtakes her and now she is. now she is just a very, very fresh memory.</p><p>the tree grows and changes horrifically, warping and writhing until it finally goes still. renjun lets out a stuttered breath at the sight of it standing in the middle of the room, like it’s been there decades before he was born. like it’s alive, but not in that way. not in the way he needs it to be.</p><p>his wrist is spit out of the earth, he hadn’t even realized he’d been pulling. instantly, he’s stumbling up with his spindly seven-year-old legs and tripping his way over to the tree, folding in on himself at the roots. </p><p>“mama,” he chokes out in a whisper, like maybe if he’s quiet enough, it’ll bring her back. maybe if he listens very, very hard with his eyes closed, he’ll be able to hear her singing to him like she does when he has a bad dream—and then he’ll wake up, and she’ll be right by his side.</p><p>in a heartbeat, the searing pain at renjun’s wrist grows exponentially, and then the skin is violently splitting wide open, spraying blood everywhere.</p><p>the guttural scream doesn’t make it past his throat, he’s unconscious before he hits the ground.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>❀</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>jeno lee spends too much of his time with renjun.</p><p>every waking moment, really. unlike donghyuck, who they meet once every few days, jeno is constantly lazing around his cottage. he picks fruits off his mother’s tree and prepares them for his study breaks, the brief instances renjun pauses his search for answers, presses a branch in between the leaves, and quenches a different kind of hunger.</p><p>jeno’s eyes are too kind. renjun wishes he could spot pity in them, because at least then he’d be able to push him away, tell him it isn’t worth it, he isn’t worth it. but he never can. so he never does.</p><p>after all, jeno is the only one he really has left at the end of the day. at age thirteen, they’re just as inseparable as they were at age one, three, seven, twelve. vines tangled around each other, set to grow together or not at all.</p><p>“you need to get out of here,” jeno tells him one day, leaning over renjun’s shoulder. renjun stops reading and looks at him, already annoyed. the birds have been chirping incessantly all day and he’s developed a bit of a headache.</p><p>“stepping out of my cottage won’t change how the world looks. everything is the same.”</p><p>“no,” jeno shakes his head gently. he lifts a finger to renjun’s temple and pokes it once, twice, smiles like he’s accomplished something. “here. out of here.”</p><p>jeno’s finger is warm against his skin and he nearly melts into it. touch, so miniscule, and yet it pulls him apart in an instant.</p><p>“it’s not your job, jun-ah,” jeno’s lips form the name with such familiarity, renjun chooses to look at his mouth instead of his eyes. “and it’s not your fault, either. didn’t she say that to you? life is broken, but you can’t piece it back alone. you just… you marvel at how it still goes on, despite its cracks. and, maybe, you learn to go on, too. despite your cracks.”</p><p>renjun flicks his eyes to his mother’s tree, her voice doesn’t ring as loud and certain in his head anymore, her memory having rotted in the past few years. it’s easy to believe that he’ll find a way, eventually, to bring her back, but that ease makes it all the more harder for him to move on.</p><p>renjun has been searching for answers since he was seven years old, since guilt and fear fueled his survival. what is he without his quest? all he remembers is the panic in his mother’s eyes, the way they were both connected, held back by their hands and feet, the way she was there one moment, and gone the next.</p><p>and the truth is, renjun doesn’t know if he can rewrite that memory with one that moves backward and undoes everything step by step, but he also doesn’t know how he can possibly go on without trying.</p><p>it’s why he bends over his books for hours despite his sore neck, it’s why he spends so much time searching despite the palpable loneliness. it’s why he’s always, <em>always, </em>doing things <em>despite</em>.</p><p>all he can say back blankly as he brushes his fingers over the begonia growing out of his wrist is, “jeno, i’m so tired.”</p><p>he is. he’s so, incredibly tired.</p><p>jeno sweeps away the books and tucks renjun under his arm, carding fingers through his hair. renjun goes easily, picturing the field mice that rest in tulips.</p><p>“okay, alright, jun,” he says, dropping his cheek to rest on renjun’s head. it’s so warm. so warm. “it’s okay, let’s just stay like this for a while.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>❀</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“i’m jaemin, jaemin na. but you can call me nana!”</p><p>renjun can not, actually. he doesn’t know this boy with the blue hair, smile so wide and toothy it’s almost uncomfortable. he looks like he belongs in a myth, his whole demeanor dripping of something <em>other.</em></p><p>a small willow tree stands guard at the entrance of his cottage, much like every other cottage, the foliage acting as a makeshift door. jaemin’s head is all that peers through the leaves, and the colours of his hair against the green backdrop do nothing to convince renjun of his humanity.</p><p>“jaemin na,” renjun sounds out stiffly, feeling the way the words stick to the roof of his mouth. “i know everyone within thirty boulders of here, but i have no clue who you are.”</p><p>he stands firmly in the entrance, casting a glance back at his study materials, half-hearted research strewn out on loose leaves, ready to be blown away with a moment’s notice. </p><p>turning back to jaemin, unfortunately, feels like a saving grace.</p><p>jaemin’s smile turns sweeter, cherry blossom sweet, if that’s possible, and he laughs light and high. “of course you don’t! i come from far, far away. i’m not even technically human—but don’t worry, i like them a whole lot.”</p><p>right. renjun wishes jeno were here, but he’s off helping donghyuck and his grandmother today, something about washing vegetables in the river. apparently, elder lee will be making stew for the whole community tonight. without jeno there to cool him down, easily the diplomat of the two, renjun’s prone to quick, nasty fits of annoyance.</p><p>his eyebrow twitches. he repeats, “i have no clue who you are.”</p><p>he wants to dole out the usual excuse he uses when someone unwanted comes needlessly poking around, <em>sorry, i’m busy. i’ve got work to do, but we’ll catch up some other time. actually, i just started reading and i don’t want to lose focus so fast.</em></p><p>but the thing is, he’s been tired since he was thirteen, and jaemin na is from far, far away.</p><p>“well, if you’d like a quick breakdown,” jaemin takes in a deep breath and claps his hands together loudly, bouncing on his heels, “my parents turned before i was born. unheard of, i know, but i’m living proof that it’s possible! i was born in the hollow of my mother’s tree, but no one is sure how. i don’t have a flower. i have blood, but it's something closer to sap, visually speaking. so, don’t worry! <em>i’m</em> not even sure who i am!</p><p>“what i do know is that the earth has raised me since i was a child, and not long ago, it told me i had to seek you. so here i am! jaemin na, in the flesh, but of course, you can call me nana.”</p><p>for a moment, the breeze blows the leaves overhead this way and that, letting a beam of light fall directly in jaemin’s eyes. he doesn’t squint or close them, leaving renjun to watch as the colours shift in his iris, a swirl of liquid gold and bronze. it’s all so new, and renjun can’t seem to look away.</p><p>“jaemin,” he says deliberately, blinking rapidly until the spell is broken and he can rip his eyes away. jaemin’s smile falters, just a little, and renjun thinks it’s the most human thing he’s seen in years. only one thing comes to mind. “did you just say you don’t have a flower?” </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>❀</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>houses are interesting, renjun learns.</p><p>there are no pictures, not anymore, but where images don’t float to the surface, words do. they bob lightly on water, stick to the tongues of the elders, carrying stories that make his head spin with wonder.</p><p>the cottages present now are spread across the land at random, cosmically sprinkled across the frosting of the earth, popping up conveniently when needed. the walls are made of large sheets of slate, padded with moss and an overgrowth of ivy. trees bend over backwards unnaturally over the sides of the walls, creating a ceiling of leaves and branches and sunlight—everlasting sunlight that rains down in fractured beams.</p><p>furniture is old and strange, as most things are now, it pops up over the years almost begrudgingly, like the earth didn’t plan on handing it over but couldn’t stand to keep it in for so long. it’s always covered with vines, a criss-crossed warning. a claim. a reminder.</p><p>but the elders—they speak of towers so high you couldn’t see the tops on foggy days. they speak of concrete and marble and steel and glass. they speak of wood, but not the wood renjun knows, a wood that gleams like water before a sunset. something called plastic for knickknacks, something called shingles for a roof that doesn’t let the sunlight in.</p><p>and as horrible as it sounds, renjun yearns for it. just a little. as humans do.</p><p>he wants a cold, hard world, because this new one—this supposedly warm and supple one—feels so brittle and hollow that he’d rather take the discomfort. he’d rather have flowers that grew in pots in the corner of his cottage instead of sprouting from his wrist, pulsing with heavy reminders that tie him down to a sadness so deep it permeates through his skin.</p><p>there’s a saying that the elders like to recall with their misty eyes focused sadly on the dirt below their feet, <em>if you walk on the grass with your bare feet, your eyes will be sharper than the cut of a diamond.</em></p><p>renjun does go around barefoot, there’s nothing else to go around on, but his toes never learn the gentle caress of grass. it was green, they tell him, a happy green, a lively green, and it felt like a thousand kisses against your skin. but it disappeared one day, long before renjun’s time, and hasn’t come back since.</p><p>
  <em>punishment, like everything else, my child, it’s punishment. </em>
</p><p>houses are interesting, but they’ll never be homes.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>❀</p><p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>they find out about most of it from the grandson of the highest elder in the community, of all people.</p><p>he’s got a silver tongue coated with thorns, but aside from that he’s all gentle lines and gentler touches. with eyes that curve like the moon and a deceptively sweet, bear cub smile, donghyuck lee approaches jeno and renjun like he’s known them his whole life.</p><p>he settles down on the bank of the river they float in and watches in that unnerving, calculating way of his that makes most of the kids within a couple boulders steer clear of him.</p><p>age eight, the year renjun couldn’t yet stare at words for hours on end without a break, the guilt and pain digging their talons into his shoulders, forcing them into a perpetual downwards slope. every time jeno dunked him into the water, he stayed under until his lungs started screaming.</p><p>“you two are so childish,” donghyuck’s voice breaks through the quiet. renjun opens his eyes and lets his legs drop, the blue screen above his eyes slowly falling away until he’s staring at a gangly boy with dirt smeared on his cheek and a delightful look in his eyes.</p><p>jeno frowns from where he’s ankle deep in the water. he’s been looking for fish to play with. “aren’t you our age?”</p><p>“maybe,” donghyuck sticks his tongue out like a child, and renjun will look back some day in the future and wonder why he found it so out of place. they were children, after all, were they not? but presently, renjun’s fingers tingle at the carefree picture donghyuck paints, and he ducks under the water voluntarily this time.</p><p>when he comes back up, donghyuck looks right at him. “but i still know more than you.”</p><p>and that is where it begins.</p><p>the lazy afternoon gets left behind in favour of drying off under the sun, supine on a large, flat rock, side by side. their arms don’t touch, but renjun’s body still burns between the two other boys when donghyuck answers every one of their questions like he’s lived longer than the both of them combined. it must be nice to have an elder around. it must be nice not to be completely alone.</p><p>“the flowers,” jeno finally asks as the sun is creeping back to meet the horizon. they’ve skirted around the topic for so long, jumping from one useless question to the next. “why the flowers?”</p><p>renjun is the only one who has his—though he knows that everyone eventually gets them before they’re nineteen—so when two sets of eyes land on his wrist, he’s already clamped a hand over it, smothering the petals under his palm.</p><p>he ignores the sudden pain that flares from the action, an elder told him that it would be like this—raw, open, vulnerable—for at least another year or two.</p><p>“there were too many people who didn’t care,” donghyuck finally replies. it’s too nonchalant, a casual shrug of the shoulder. he rolls onto his stomach and watches a tiny ant pass by, adoration dripping from his features. “too many people who were selfish. i don’t understand how they couldn’t care about all this, but they didn’t, so the earth forced them to. it’s a reminder of who we are at our worst moments.”</p><p>he lets the ant crawl up his finger and renjun watches, torn between fondness and anger. </p><p><em>yes</em>, renjun gathers, <em>they only cared about themselves, so the earth became a part of them. of course. </em></p><p>“my grandma says it’s important to say sorry,” donghyuck scrunches up his brows like he’s trying to remember her exact words, but gives up when the ant crawls off his nail, back onto the rock. he pouts. “i don’t know.”</p><p>sorry? how is renjun ever to say sorry to his mother? he’d have to un-kill her for that.</p><p>“and the dying?” renjun whispers, tears pooling in the corners of his eyes as he looks up, up, beyond the leaves of the trees, at the sunset streaked canvas pinned with flashes of movement, the flapping of wings. escape. jeno holds his hand, and donghyuck hesitates for the first time that evening before responding.</p><p>“too many people were the problem in the first place, so the earth just made a decision. when children see the flowers, the parents go back to nature. it’s like saying, ‘here are the things you’ve spent forever not caring about. now watch as they become your downfall, as you care about them like you’ve never cared about anything before’.”</p><p>donghyuck stops and shifts, curling up next to renjun and placing a head on his shoulder like they hadn’t met just a few hours ago. “it’s a way of control. less people. less likely people will mess up. less time to ruin a new generation. we learned, obviously, how to avoid it for as long as possible, but sometimes… sometimes mistakes are made.”</p><p>“mistakes,” renjun feels the word carving itself into his gut. he feels the panic he’d seen in his mother’s eyes, still fresh, still real. the if onlys haven’t stopped ringing in his head since that day.</p><p>if only he’d looked away. if only he’d never noticed the tear. if only he’d been less curious. if only, if only, if only. “she didn’t make a mistake.” <em>i did. </em></p><p>neither jeno or donghyuck lets go of him, and they soak under the remaining hours of sun until the rock grows cool against their skin.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>❀</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>jaemin sits at his mother’s base with an air of unwarranted comfort and confidence, legs naturally parting into a vee, following the roots, as he presses his back to the trunk. renjun sits on the couch in front of him. their eyes latch onto each other, appraising, until a bee scurries past their vision.</p><p>jaemin’s head swivels to follow it. renjun’s doesn’t.</p><p>“i don’t understand,” he says bluntly, effectively drawing jaemin’s attention back to him. it’s driving renjun mad. according to jaemin, he’s been nineteen for <em>months. </em>“you can’t just not have your flower. it has to happen before you’re nineteen. this is impossible. you’re impossible.”</p><p>jaemin shrugs, serene smile ever-present. “nothing is impossible, not now.”</p><p>and as fair of a point as that is, it does nothing to placate renjun. he anxiously thumbs over his wrist, the stem of the begonia wraps around it like a bracelet, sitting right under his skin. it almost looks like a vein, but it’s not. “if you’re clearly not worked up about this, then why are you even here?”</p><p>“i told you,” jaemin says, fingers idly playing with the dirt. he crosses his legs at the ankles and ends up nudging one of renjun’s papers away by accident. “the earth sent me here. i’m pretty sure i’m supposed to be with you from now on. forever.”</p><p>here’s the thing: jaemin is proof that it doesn’t have to be this way. he may not be human, but it doesn’t matter. jaemin doesn’t have a flower, jaemin doesn’t have sorrow coating his wings with lead, jaemin is free. <em>free.</em> and renjun doesn’t know when his anger started being more about the petals stemming from his wrist than his mother being cocooned in a tree but it’s there now, hot and persistent, and he hates the way it feels.</p><p>he wants to sow all his venomous thoughts beside jaemin and have them grow to swallow him whole, but he can’t, not when he’s spent so much of his life trying to reverse that exact kind of thing. instead, he balls his hands into fists and snaps, “i don’t think i remember agreeing to forever.”</p><p>jaemin’s eyes cloud over like he’s been transported somewhere else, but not even a second passes before the gold has returned to its full vibrancy. he shakes his head, a blur of blue, “you didn’t, but i’m staying anyway. you know that.”</p><p>phantom pains overtake his wrists with the memory of how hard he tried to pull them out of the ground, how strong the grip around them was, how helpless, powerless, he felt.</p><p>when the earth makes up its mind, nothing and no one stands a chance. angry tears prick at his eyes as he smiles wryly, “of course.”</p><p><em>my grandma says it’s important to say sorry.</em> if not his mother, then who? the earth? he’d rather burn on the face of a dying sun.</p><p>renjun looks at this boy with blue hair and a wildly disarming smile and wonders if he’s lonely, too. as different as they may be, something binds them together. it itches, but renjun doesn’t budge. if this is to be forever, he doesn’t want to spend it mending someone else’s loneliness.</p><p>he eases onto the ground and starts packing up his research, eyes on the leaves as he mumbles a disheartened, partly joking, “i’m not gonna fall in love with you.”</p><p>he startles when jaemin shuffles next to him and places a hand on his shoulder. his eyes are too soft and too sincere, “i won’t ask you to, renjun. i promise.”</p><p>it’s the first time he’s said his name, and it blankets renjun in something too warm not to be human.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>❀</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>a tree identical to his mother’s sits in his old room, the one he used to conquer as a baby. he was never given an explanation, but it isn’t hard to deduce what happened when his mother leaves, too.</p><p>renjun has never seen that kind of love in action, not in his own life. he sees jeno’s parents, and the obvious nectar that envelops their very beings when they’re around each other. he sees donghyuck’s grandparents, twin anchors holding hands as they maneuver dips and bumps in the ground.</p><p>he surmises quickly that love isn’t meant to be in his life. not like that, at least. even if it comes, even if it peers into his cottage, even if it settles itself into the cracks and crevices, he won’t let it stick. because he knows what love leads to, and he knows the pain that follows.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>❀</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em>…our findings have concluded that the earth is also capable of experiencing regret. uncommon as it may be, multiple instances have been reported from around the sphere. regret is so terribly human that it does not come as a surprise that the earth has learned it. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>up north, a newborn saw its father’s flower, and yet the father still lives. in the south, there’s a community of people whose flowers all sprout from happiness. somewhere there, to the left and down just a bit, there is a bird that sings tunes the elders recognize as songs. over there, too! close your eyes, let your fingers sink into the dirt, and maybe you’ll feel grass tickling your fingertips. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>raging with years of abuse, the earth decided to punish us. but much like a parent with their child, the regret reverberates quickly and without much grandeur. forgiveness, ultimately, seems to be the key. forgive the earth? perhaps. forgive our ancestors? we’re all inclined to. but who is it, at the end of the world, that we’ve forgotten to forgive?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>who is it that we will never be able to forgive? and are they the answer? </em>
</p><p>
  <em>are they salvation? </em>
</p><p>
  <em>further research shows that…</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>❀</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“mama, the flower was supposed to stop hurting, but it didn’t. every time i think about you, every time i see you in my memories, it aches. some days, it bleeds. i wish you were here to worry about the blood, mama. i don’t know why i’m still searching for answers, i know there aren’t any.</p><p>“it’s just that i haven’t given myself the time. i don’t know who i am when i’m alone, and i liked myself best when i was with you, so what’s left of me, mama? what’s left of me now, will you search? will you look inside and find it? here, mama, my wound is still open, see? i’m still torn, see? you can look for what’s left. see?”</p><p>age eighteen.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>❀</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>three months into living with jaemin, jeno swings by one afternoon. he cocks his head, watches renjun go about twisting sticks into a basket, weaving flowers into the empty spaces, and then with no warning at all, gathers him up into his arms and squeezes him like the world is ending.</p><p>renjun nearly starts complaining. the basket is for jaemin, who has a tendency to bring home rocks he finds odd or pretty or ‘too normal to be normal’. his pockets are starting to stretch, the seams slowly becoming undone, but renjun likes seeing the rocks lying around the cottage.</p><p>the complaints rest on the tip of his tongue, really, but then jeno pokes his temple, still wrapped around him. </p><p>“i hated seeing you in here.”</p><p>and, well, the complaints don’t have anywhere to go after that.</p><p>so he lets himself be held and loved by jeno lee, his best friend who looks at him with clear eyes and cuts fruit for him when he’s hungry but doesn’t know it and kisses his forehead like his mother used to, sometimes.</p><p>“no more,” he warns firmly before he leaves, cupping renjun’s face between his hands. and renjun nods, focusing on the small forget-me-not under jeno’s right eye, because some part of him that only jeno sees seems to know that he doesn’t want that anymore, either.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>❀</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>jeno and donghyuck take to jaemin like vines to armchairs, wrapping around him like they’ve been waiting for someone to cling to.</p><p>they converse with him easily, words churning out of their mouths smoothly, never dropping off awkwardly like they often do with renjun. and jaemin is just as receptive, just as open to talking and touching and smiling and doing the things that renjun’s always had trouble with, with unmatched grace.</p><p>“i hope the people where you’re from didn’t all flee after listening to you talk all day long,” renjun tells him once in the morning. they’re picking fruits off his mother’s tree, and jaemin’s lips have yet to touch for longer than ten consecutive seconds.</p><p>it’s an open invitation of sorts, a poke, a prod, a nudge. <em>where is far away? what was it like? </em>because for all the talking they do, jaemin has yet to speak of his past.</p><p>but just like every other time, jaemin doesn’t offer him much besides an almost bitter smile. it sits terribly on his face, a flavour renjun’s never tried but instantly knows he dislikes.</p><p>he says, “they couldn’t have fled if they tried, but they were good listeners. even if i didn’t say anything, they always listened.”</p><p>and there’s something about the way his hands falter at the stem of the fruit he’s about to pluck, something about the broken serenity in his liquid gold eyes, that has renjun swallowing any potentially harsh remarks and saying, “it feels good listening to you.”</p><p>jaemin’s smile turns sweeter, and renjun turns away. “i missed having a home that feels alive.”</p><p>“well,” jaemin responds, eyes bright again. he comes closer and places a warm hand on renjun’s shoulder, fingers fidgeting like they itch to do more. “i’m here now, renjun.”</p><p>today marks six months since jaemin’s arrival. incidentally, it also marks six months since renjun’s buried his nose between words that might’ve saved him, might still save him (except he’s been caring less and less about salvation these days).</p><p>the four of them are in a secret burrow in the woods donghyuck had discovered when he was ten, and had consequently dragged jeno and renjun to see as well. it’s cozy, rounded out with a small pool of water in the middle, fine roots hanging from the ceiling like stray hairs. the entrance is a tight fit, but the actual burrow is tighter, not meant for four people.</p><p>jeno ends up pulling renjun into his lap, which is embarrassing enough as it is, but it floods him with something else entirely when jaemin gives them both a curious, almost calculating look. jeno whines about loose dirt falling onto him when renjun’s head brushes the ceiling.</p><p>donghyuck cuddles up next to jaemin, and jaemin readily accepts the contact. something else renjun has noticed. jaemin seeks touch like renjun sought answers, hungrily, like wanting anything else would be a crime.</p><p>“hey, hold this,” renjun says one night, holding out a hand while he busies himself with tearing the vines off his bed. they grow back so fast, only taking a few weeks to engulf everything again.</p><p>he startles when jaemin’s hand slips into his, fingers intertwining like they do this all the time. when renjun stops tugging at the vines and turns to face jaemin, he jolts at their proximity and falls back onto the bed. their entwined hands keep him sitting.</p><p>“what,” renjun darts between their hands and jaemin’s innocent face, “what are you doing?”</p><p>“you said hold this.”</p><p>yes. hold this. the sharp rock he’d been using to cut through the vines. the one he didn’t want to use anymore because his hands were starting to hurt. did he not hold that out in his hand? he had to have. he opens his mouth to ask, and then sees it snug in jaemin’s free hand.</p><p>“i meant that!” he exclaims, pointing aggressively. “not me!”</p><p>“ah.” jaemin doesn’t let go of his hand.</p><p>the air fills with something new, and renjun blinks. for a moment, they just look at each other. memories flash quickly in renjun’s head of jaemin’s hesitant touches, his lingering gaze, and then—and then he thinks of his mother, the way she’d hold him tight and tighter still after each passing second, the way her eyes on him alone would feel like a warm embrace.</p><p>it’s the first time he thinks of her without his wrist hurting.</p><p>suddenly, his eyes are hot with tears and he twists his head away to pull at the vines again.</p><p>when jaemin lets out a breath and slowly starts to pull away, renjun tightens his grip.</p><p>hours and hours pass and renjun is blinking, blinking, blinking, and when he blinks again it’s groggy and heavy and jeno’s arms are limp around him, soft breath falling in his ear. donghyuck is curled up on the ground, and jaemin is nowhere to be seen.</p><p>the panic is quick, a spear in his gut that instantly has his vision sharpening and limbs freezing. <em>again? has the earth taken someone away from me again?</em></p><p>as much as renjun has convinced himself jaemin doesn’t matter, certainly not like that, the sheer enormity of his fear of losing jaemin throws any denial out the window.</p><p>the truth is this: renjun’s research notes collecting dust in his old nursery, tucked away under old moss dolls and new, funny looking rocks.</p><p>the truth is this: donghyuck telling renjun his smile grows less and less rare by the day, but still manages to become more precious. jeno saying <em>jun-ah, i thought i would be your only forever, i’m hurt</em>, and then shooting him a smile that says he’s anything but.</p><p>the truth is this: climbing the willow tree out front and nestling into its arms with jaemin across from him. telling stories under the cover of the night about his mother, ducking away from the moonlight so that jaemin can’t see the marvel on his face when his wrist doesn’t so much as itch.</p><p>the truth is this: waking up to nothing for so long, and then waking up to na jaemin. na jaemin, who is so clearly in need of love but never demands it. na jaemin, who fills the cottage with his sugary voice and his fluttering eyelashes and his comforting touches. na jaemin, who makes renjun want to forget, shove old memories into a dark, endless hole to make room for new ones. (na jaemin, who makes renjun want to forgive. endlessly.)</p><p>he carefully removes himself from jeno’s embrace and scurries out of the burrow, ready to scream jaemin’s name until his throat is raw when he sees a flash of blue half-hidden in the hollow of a tree. the relief is instantaneous, pouring over him until it burns, turning hot with irritation.</p><p>“i thought you were taken,” he says, loud enough to be heard, tight enough to make jaemin’s mouth part in surprise. he turns his head and then moves, jumping out of the hollow to land on the ground.</p><p>“i’m sorry, i was just thinking—”</p><p>“you promised me forever,” renjun grits out, stepping closer to jaemin with every word. “and i don’t take forever lightly. i’ve had people taken from me before and i refuse to let it happen again, so don’t—”</p><p>renjun plants his feet firmly in front of jaemin, daring him with his eyes to disappear. there are endless questions between them, things they’ll never say, things they shouldn’t say, but renjun can’t seem to grab onto any of them. instead, instead he latches onto jaemin.</p><p>he wraps his arms around his waist and pulls him in.</p><p>they’ve known each other six months, and all six have given renjun more answers than he’s gotten in the past twelve years.</p><p>he pushes his face into jaemin’s neck, inhaling his woody scent and letting it embrace him from the inside out. when jaemin finally reaches up and grips his back, renjun sighs. </p><p>“i’m sorry, renjun,” jaemin whispers. he doesn’t understand, renjun can tell. it doesn’t matter. “i won’t do it again.”</p><p>“that’s all i ask of you. please.” they clutch and pull and breathe, symbiotes fueled by each other, hearts beating in sync. renjun inhales deeply and pulls himself out of jaemin’s neck to cradle his face.</p><p>“nana,” he breathes, uncertain. the river rushes somewhere in the distance, filling the silence between them. jaemin has never looked so human, eyes approaching an earthy brown in the dark, blue hair wrapped in shadows.</p><p>renjun takes one hand and lets it trail down to rest over jaemin’s heart, stroking above jaemin’s cheekbone with the other. his eyes flick down to where jaemin is sweetest and most overwhelming. </p><p>he doesn’t get the chance to lean in, jeno and donghyuck stumbling out of the burrow with sleepy eyes. renjun lets go, steps back, but not entirely.</p><p>no one says anything when they embark homewards and renjun’s pinky stays linked in jaemin’s.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>❀</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“are you sure?” donghyuck asks one last time, his daffodil blowing in the wind from where it blooms behind his ear. maybe. possibly. renjun thinks so.</p><p>jeno squeezes his hand, “do you remember when i told you not to be afraid?” <em>we’re not six anymore, jun-ah, it’s time to stop acting like we are.</em></p><p>renjun smiles, there’s no bitter vignette to the memory. “of course.”</p><p>the wind blows, warm and slow. from this cliff, they can see everything. the river twinkles underneath the setting sun, and not too far off from there, renjun can see home. the world is coated in a golden glow so beautiful it makes his insides light up, too, and renjun thinks maybe, just maybe, the earth still loves them.</p><p>after all, to love with fault, to love <em>despite</em>, that’s as human as it gets.</p><p>“i think,” jeno says, looking at him with a crinkled smile that makes his heart grow incredibly fond, “i’ll have to ask you to be brave again. one last time. can you be brave, jun-ah?”</p><p>donghyuck’s hand comes up to his shoulder, and he pictures the three of them lying underneath the setting sun at age eight, children but not quite. happy but not quite.</p><p>“i can.” he bends down to take years of his life, a record of the chains that weighed him down, pressed between leaves in sap that barely stained the surface, and counts in his head.</p><p>one.</p><p>
  <em>mama, do you see?</em>
</p><p>two.</p><p>
  <em>because i think i do.</em>
</p><p>three.</p><p>he lets the pages fly into the wind, leaf by leaf, until all they look like are birds in the sky. he thinks he spots some of his petals fly away, too.</p><p>
  <em>there is so much, mama. so much.</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>❀</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>at age twenty-one, renjun wakes up to blood on his sheets.</p><p>his wrist throbs, and when he pulls it out from under his pillow, it’s crusted with dark red. he doesn’t process what’s truly going for some time until a bird chirps loudly overhead and something clicks. his eyes widen.</p><p>his flower is gone.</p><p>renjun closes his eyes, opens them, closes them again, open, close, open, close. by the thirteenth time, the begonia still hasn’t appeared, and the white scar that cuts across his wrist is more visible, barely a raised bump.</p><p>something was—is—wrong. flowers didn’t just disappear out of thin air. it’s, well, clearly it isn’t impossible—but it should be. it <em>should be.</em></p><p>he jerks, ready to fly out of bed and let the dirt under his feet ground him, bring him back to a reality that he knows. examine the scar, maybe, uncover it to be a trick of the light. he just needs to do something that will brings all the pieces together and form a coherent puzzle, but before he can even attempt to get out of bed, an arm wraps around his waist and pulls him in close.</p><p>“flower,” comes jaemin’s low mumble, “it’s too early.”</p><p>he presses a kiss to the back of renjun’s neck, so delicate and safe that renjun all but melts despite the panic pushing at the forefront of his emotions. <em>flower</em>, jaemin calls him with all the love he has and more. <em>flower</em>, without malice. <em>flower, </em>without repulsion. flower, flower, flower.</p><p><em>flower</em>, which he may be, but no longer has.</p><p>“nana,” renjun says, trying to tamp down his nerves, “look at my wrist and tell me what you see?”</p><p>“the most beautiful begonia—” jaemin cuts himself off, chin digging into renjun’s shoulder as he gets a better look at his wrist. his breath hitches, and he sounds a lot more awake when he speaks. “what happened?”</p><p>and, not for the first time in his life, renjun doesn’t have an answer.</p><p>five minutes later, they’re sitting in bed facing each other as jaemin runs his fingers over the scar, again and again. light falls in streams from above, the morning sun illuminating the dried blood, catching on the white ridge underneath it all.</p><p>jaemin’s eyes darken for a brief, suspended moment, and then he returns. something like realization dawns on his face, pink lips parting in wonder. the vines climbing up the bed frame writhe, and renjun swears he sees them being pulled back down into the earth, just a little.</p><p>“something changed, obviously. but—flower, this is what you were… this <em>means</em> something. this is hope, this is…”</p><p>parents who don’t have to love in fragments, hiding behind fear. children who don’t have to hurt for years and years and <em>years</em>. wings, light and meant to take to the sky. this is everything renjun’s been waiting for his whole life, this is—this is not an answer, but it’s a beginning. this is…</p><p>“salvation,” renjun breathes, reverent. something flickers at the back of his mind, a page from a book he might’ve read ages ago. he hears donghyuck’s voice, high and lively as it was at age eight, <em>my grandma says that…</em></p><p>something new creeps on the horizon, and renjun already knows that he has to show everyone, tell everyone. jaemin smiles at him, bigger than the day they’d first met, and renjun takes the chance to kiss him with the kind of patience and depth that one can only convey when the world is beginning to start anew.  </p><p>when they pull apart, jaemin’s eyes glow bright, “i think i’d follow you to the ends of the earth.”</p><p>and renjun laughs, loud and bright as the sky above them, before diving back in to kiss him more insistently, searing the words onto jaemin’s lips with his own so that he’ll never forget: <em>but you don’t have to, not anymore, god, not anymore, you don’t have to.</em></p><p> </p><p>❀</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>jaemin is sleeping when the earth tells him.</p><p>there’s a boy, and he cries at an unfamiliar altar, wrist stretched out in a prayer. <em>renjun</em>, he knows instinctively. it’s the first time he thinks the name, and he promises, somehow, to keep it safe when it travels to his mouth, when it rolls from his lips.</p><p>there are flashes, there is pain, there is loneliness mirroring jaemin’s near perfectly. there is a chance, a whisper of eternity, and then there it is, clear as day despite no words being said. an idea planted perfectly in the recesses of his mind.</p><p>jaemin has spent his days waiting for night to come, he’s grown used to the earth taking care of him, if only in his dreams. nestled in the hollow of his mother, he’s wondered how it would feel to be embraced by more than tree bark and branches.</p><p>for a long time, he is perfectly alone. the forest is his friend, his shoulder to cry on and hand to hold. it’s necessary is what the earth tells him. <em>different, keep away, too confusing, need time, need time, need time. </em>and then jaemin is eighteen, and his lips have nearly sealed shut from disuse, and his heart aches for something big and whole and tender, and he’s given the name <em>renjun.</em></p><p>
  <em>special, special boy, rebirth, he will not want, with you, forever, but one day. one day, nana. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>find. stay. </em>
</p><p>when he wakes up, his eyes are following a path into the distance. he doesn’t know how long it will take, but he knows he’ll find something big and whole and tender at the end.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>as always, lmk if i made any mistakes! <br/> </p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://twitter.com/punksunlight">twt</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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